Smoothwall Network Guardian Negatives?

[mb2k01]

Hi All,

 

I've read some wonderful things about Smoothwall on this forum, and as a result of that, spoken with them and had a web demo of Network Guardian today. I've also planned a full-site evaluation before the end of the month....so all looking pretty good!

 

But.... In an effort to gain as much info as possible and make a well-informed decision, I'd be keen to hear from anyone who has something negative to say about the product! (Surely there is something negative?!)

 

Does anyone have anything negative to say about the product/company?

Is there something that Network Guardian doesn't do as well as an alternative?

Has anyone moved from Network Guardian and gone elsewhere? (If so, why?)

 

Thanks will be issued to all!

[FN-GM]

There is a member called Tom on this forum and he is pretty high up within smoothwall so he might be able to help we positives.

 

I haven't used it myself i use websense. I have had nothing but good reports of other users though.

[john]

A negative, the box doesn't make a cup of tea and hasn't got a built in cup holder unlike my servers and PCs

 

But on a positive side if your lucky and buy it you may get a free Smoothwall mug with your name on it

 

Sorry for not being too serious, but for the features you get in it, and cost of it, it is very much worth its money.

 

PS - As a former Websense user at a place I used to work at, I'd far rather have the Smoothwall box anyday over websense, websense was just over complex, required too much messing with and really not that good for schools IMHO. It may work in global firms etc but not schools.

[mb2k01]

Indeed! It was Tom that I made initial contact with after reading lost of his posts!

No nasty suprises yet then! (And I hate hot drinks, so even the lack of that service doesn't worry me!)

[ICTNUT]

The guys at smoothwall have been chasing me for an evaluation for some time so last month I caved in and setup a VM within our VMWare setup.

 

I had the VM (Network Gaurdian) installed in 30 mins, had it configured and running in about 2 hours and since then, about 5 weeks now, I have had nothing but complaints

 

I LOVE THIS THING !

 

Yes I am buying it at the end of the month, yes thier support team is the mutz nutz, the fact that most students complain that they cannot get to the proxies they used to be able to, staff not being able to randomly download rubbish and yes more complaints from them.

 

I know its working !

 

What have I used for the last 3 years Ihear you ask, Bloxx, never again.

 

Bad Points, hmmmm let me see.

 

1 - It takes a little getting used to the way that guardian works with regards to filtering if you have never been exposed to a 'proper' filtering system but once you have played with itfor a few days you'll get the hang of it.

 

2 - Getting my head around the reports at the moment and this is taking time, maybe this is not a bad point just lack of user enthusiasm

 

Anyhow give it a go you have nothing to loose but alot to gain, and if you decide that you don't want it after the eval throw it this way I'll have another one.

[john]

Worth adding to the Reporting thing, as the good Sir Tom will confirm, but I know the update thats due this month (don't know the date but Tom will) has many more reporting features and reporting stuff in so that may help with reporting Ozan.

[plexer]

well I've been a smoothwall customer for about 7 or 8 years now and for what their solutions do and the price they can't be beaten.

[tom_newton]

Bad points... theres this one sales guy called Gav... ah wait, I won't be mean to the poor lad

 

Seriously, though - if you're thinking "mm, reporting, maybe I should have a go at that" - john is right, hang on until FP2 (ETA 24/03) and the reporting system gets an overhaul. The new variant is based on what we have now, but there are loads of templates - including things like "most viewed bbc news articles (by name)", "top wiki editors" and all sorts of crazy things we couldn't do before. We also hope to run a few reporting classes by webex/gotomeeting at some point. If you would be interested, let me know.

[ninjabeaver]

Negative Point ......

 

Still not got my mug. Grrrr... I was promised it at BETT2009.

 

Everything else is positive though. Frickin awesome piece of kit. Kids hate it though, staff love it.

 

P.S. Any way you can send me a PDF or some more of those Safety posters you had at BETT2009.

 

@MBraham - BUY IT!!

[contink]

Hmm... I think the main negative is the learning curve which at times can feel a bit like you need an ice axe, pitons and some strong rope to get up but they counter that with considerable patience and a willingness to walk you through things.

 

Given the nature of filtering it's easy to see why it's so complex and one key thing that springs to mind is that this is not something you're going to give to a teacher to manage.. It really isn't simple... but with time, a large amount of coffee/tea/strong vodka you can get through..

[tom_newton]

Simon,

 

I will tickle Gav again about your mug - he is on the case

 

I should think we can manage a pdf of those posters...

Solutions » Best Practice Guide to Safe Social Networking » SmoothWall

has the links on the right.

 

I am fairly sure there are hardcopies left - if anyone wants a couple let me know, and I will ask Sue where she's hidden them

[Ric_]

I have a UTM (the appliance) and it's great. Plug it in and you're fully configured in 15mins!

 

Reporting sucks IMHO (but as Tom says, they're fixing that) but you can still find all the information you need through the log search functions.

 

Once man-in-the-middle SSL is added (also this month I believe) it will be truley awesome!

 

I will admit that I had to phone support one time for something really random (I'd broken something ) and the tech support guy was a little inflexible but I got him put in his place and have since spoken to another couple of guys and they were ace!

 

I'd like to find more negatives... but I can't... the box even looks nice!

[ninjabeaver]

Simon,

 

I will tickle Gav again about your mug - he is on the case

 

I should think we can manage a pdf of those posters...

Solutions » Best Practice Guide to Safe Social Networking » SmoothWall

has the links on the right.

 

I am fairly sure there are hardcopies left - if anyone wants a couple let me know, and I will ask Sue where she's hidden them

 

Thanks,

 

I'm now going to build a Smoothwall Shrine to your awesomeness.

 

*Lights some candles and joss sticks.*

[Danielbarron]

There must be reasons why other products are bought. Could be features, support, price, sales guy, being unknown, not trusting something new, too much of a learning curve, hard to use or configure, backhanders, school/county policy, better the devil you know, or anything. Negative feedback is great so one knows what to fix.

[mb2k01]

Thanks to all who replied between me finishing watching Liverpool and getting back to work this morning! Hugely appreciate the time you've spared to reply.

 

Tom - Would it be worth holding off signing up to the evaluation with Claire until after 25th so that I can see the new reporting features?

Also, if I did install the eval site-wide, and it became obvious it was something we couldn't live without, would it be possible to just change the key somewhere and carry on using the same installation?

[OverWorked]

I've just renewed our subscription to start the second year, for the school I work at and a children's charity I support. It's pretty hard to be negative about Smoothwall, but here goes:-

 

1) There's a quite a bit of a learning curve to go through, especially for the filtering policies and rules, but once you get the hang of it, it makes sense. It comes preconfigured with default policies, but you're better off deleting these and creating your own. You'll gain a better understanding of how they work that way. Thanks to Smoothwall's tech support for that tip.

 

2) Errr... that's it.

 

 

If you'd asked the question a couple of months ago, I'd have added that the admin web interface was very slow, but they've fixed that recently with an update.

 

I recently had a sales call from Bloxx. I agreed to the demo, as it's been a while since I last looked at it. They started by quoting more than double Smoothwall. And that didn't include a firewall. They suggested that I could use Smoothwall for the firewall and Bloxx for the filtering - yeah right.

Edited March 11, 2009 by OverWorked
spelling

[OverWorked]

I will admit that I had to phone support one time for something really random (I'd broken something ) and the tech support guy was a little inflexible ...

 

I'll second that. I only use the online support now, and it's great. Every query gets resolved promptly.

 

It can't be much fun working on a telephone help desk all day and it's not a job I'd like to do. I did suggest to Tom at the last EduGeek conf that he take the helpdesk staff out for a day to cheer them up.

[stratisphere]

We use websense at the moment, provided for free by the LEA. I'd be interested to see who has been from websense to this (ICTNUT, did you take on websense at your school?).

 

We use smoothie express gateway/firewall box here which works a charm... if it's anything like that... we may be interested!

 

BTW, any Smoothwall people, feel free to PM me if you have any case studies or materials for people like me moving from websense

[ICTNUT]

(ICTNUT, did you take on websense at your school?).

 

No as it is just not flexible enough and the cost of it is far to expensive for what it does. You know me I stray as far away from county as I can

[Burt]

I've been finding it hard to get it integrated with my Mac's and PC's together. (still not there yet but that's for another thread)

 

When I rang support they told me to fill out a ticket on-line rather then explain on the phone...(to date that was the only negative I have for the support desk and Smoothwall in general)

[ICTNUT]

I've been finding it hard to get it integrated with my Mac's and PC's together. (still not there yet but that's for another thread)

 

When I rang support they told me to fill out a ticket on-line rather then explain on the phone...(to date that was the only negative I have for the support desk and Smoothwall in general)

 

We have not had any issues with MAC's authenticating, however with BLOXX it was a complete no no.

[stratisphere]

No as it is just not flexible enough and the cost of it is far to expensive for what it does. You know me I stray as far away from county as I can

 

lol I hate the UI for it... so clunky.

 

Prehaps it really is time for a change

[tom_newton]

There must be reasons why other products are bought. Could be features, support, price, sales guy, being unknown, not trusting something new, too much of a learning curve, hard to use or configure, backhanders, school/county policy, better the devil you know, or anything. Negative feedback is great so one knows what to fix.

 

Welcome to EduGeek Dan

 

Mods: can we have Dan marked as "Sponsor"? He's one of us

 

For those that don't know Dan, he's our development director, and the guy behind "dansguardian". Between the two of us, we decide what goes in the product, and when new things are released, so as Dan says, feedback of all kinds is hugely welcome.

[tom_newton]

I've been finding it hard to get it integrated with my Mac's and PC's together. (still not there yet but that's for another thread)

 

When I rang support they told me to fill out a ticket on-line rather then explain on the phone...(to date that was the only negative I have for the support desk and Smoothwall in general)

 

Can you PM me a ticket number? I'm in and out of meetings all day today, but I will endavour to look into it for you. I imagine the support guy meant "its better if I get your setup down in hardcopy first" but I will check it out.

[ssiruuk2]

We use websense at the moment, provided for free by the LEA. I'd be interested to see who has been from websense to this

 

We moved from Websense Enterprise to Smoothwall last year.

 

Firstly, I am really glad that we made the switch and am really happy with the way our Smoothwall is performing. As others have said.. the kids HATE it especially now I have figured out how to put weightings on keywords / phrases this week Websense seemed pretty weak when it came to blocking games and kids related timewasting sites. I'm not using the smoothwall as a firewall though as we already have a Juniper SSG firewall in place.

 

On the negatives I will agree with most that the reporting is seriously lacking, compared to websense - when you see the array of reports you can run on that compared to Smoothwall you will know what I mean! Looking forward to seeing the reporting enhancements when they come out.

 

Speed of the web UI is sometimes a bit slow clunky especially when the kids are pounding the internet connection but its definately better than how it used to be pre the recent update.

 

I did deal with one very unhelpful / rude chap on the support line but was quickly moved onto Rob and Nick and they were both great and very helpful.

 

So basically we saved thousands switching from Websense and also I feel have ended up with a better / faster filter that the kids despise which shows you how well its working .